Years later I secretly looked up the definition of the word "degollar" (to slit someone's throat) in the Sopena dictionary - that was right after the assassination of José Manuel Parada, Santiago Nattino, and Manuel Guerrero in 1985. The three leftist militants were kidnapped and had their throats slit by the Chilean police. I did not dare ask my parents the meaning of that verb, "degollar," because I wanted to protect them from telling me something that I intuited as far too violent for a child to hear.

Forty years ago, to stretch the metaphor, it was the United States who flew the airplanes into the country of Chile. Henry Kissinger, a terrorist if the word has any meaning whatsoever, was the Khalid Sheikh Muhammad of this production. Their towers took 17 years to fall. It can be argued that they are still falling.